


i pray to god that we can move on

by fantasy_spoilers8



Series: sight of the sun [9]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Asexual John Laurens, Burns, Christmas, Christmas Carols, Christmas Presents, Communication, Established Relationship, Finally, Fluff, Grocery Shopping, Hurt/Comfort, Lafayette canNOT cook, M/M, Nonbinary Lafayette, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Alexander Hamilton, Trans Male Character, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-24 11:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17099435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantasy_spoilers8/pseuds/fantasy_spoilers8
Summary: Everyone calls Christmas the most wonderful time of the year. But for many, if not most, it’s really, really fucking difficult.Especially for John and Alex.-Or, the one where Alexander brings John to the Washingtons’ for Christmas.





	1. Here They Come Again to Jack My Style

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during December of Alex and John’s senior year in College. Enjoy!!
> 
> Before this, two things happened. John told his father he was in love with another man, and his father disowned him. Also, Alexander was kicked out of his dorm when his roommate found out he was trans, and has been living with John ever since.
> 
> (Don’t worry, both these events will get their own fics in the ‘verse later on.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas music can be wonderful. But for lots of people, it’s a pretty nasty trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spanish translations are in the end notes :D

“What do we need to buy again?” John asked, pushing the shopping cart through the automatic doors of the supermarket.

John heard Christmas music faintly playing over the radio. A deep voice, familiar enough to John that he recognized it, but foreign enough that he couldn’t remember the man’s name, began to sing along with the piano: _“We three kings of orient are...”_

He felt the music almost grab his mind and force it to change course. He began to tap out the rhythm of the song on the handle of the shopping cart.

John’s hair suddenly stood on end. He felt a heaviness in his chest, around his neck, behind his shoulders, like someone was holding him in place. He knit his eyebrows in confusion. Why was he feeling like _that_?

He shook his head, hoping to get rid of the ominous feeling, and turned to look at his boyfriend.

Next to him, Alexander had stopped near the pile of extra baskets and was pulling the shopping list out of his pocket. He had folded it as small as he possibly could; not because his pockets were especially small, but just because Alexander always folded anything that was left with him for too long.

In the beginning of their relationship, John had been perplexed and more than a little fascinated as Alexander would fold his and John’s empty chip bags into the tiniest squares John had ever seen before throwing them away. When John finally asked Alexander about it one day, he knitted his eyebrows in confusion, swearing up and down that he did no such thing.

Even now, this quirk still brought a smile to John’s face as he watched Alexander unfold the paper with laser focus.

His smile faded away as he heard the song on the radio continue to play.

_“...westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light...”_

Alexander squinted at the paper before remembering how blind he was without his glasses. He patted his pants pockets, back and front, and was starting to go through the zippered pouches inside his coat when John finally took pity on him.

“Alex.”

Alexander’s head snapped back up and he looked at John expectantly. John pointed above Alexander’s head with a smirk.

Alexander’s hand shot to the top of his head and he grinned sheepishly when he found his glasses there.

“What would I do without you, John?”

John’s smile widened. “Spontaneously combust, probably.”

Alexander huffed indignantly, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the smile on his face. He stood like that for a few moments, biting his lip and smiling dopily at John.

“Alex?” John prompted.

“Yeah?” Alex said dreamily.

“The list?”

Alexander fumbled for it. “Right! Right, right sorry…”

John shook his head and tried to muffle his laughter.

The two of them began to walk through the store aimlessly as they realized they were blocking the door.

The radio continued to play.

_“...king forever, ceasing never, over us all to reign…”_

That was rather a morbid concept, John thought. Why would anyone want a king ruling over them forever? Why would any sane person hand that much power over to another person? Just the thought made John’s skin start to itch.

John forced his eyes to focus on Alexander as he began to rattle off their shopping list.

“Ok, so Martha told me she still needs a huge-ass box of brown sugar for the cookies,” Alexander said, counting each item on his fingers, “two cans of cranberry sauce, strawberries, walnuts, three specific kinds of chocolate whose names I can’t pronounce because Laf insists on making only fancy-ass lava cakes every year…”

John’s mind kept drifting back to music playing on the radio.

The song had changed some point during Alexander’s soliloquy.

_“I’m dreaming of a white christmas, just like the ones I used to know…”_

John rubbed his neck self-consciously in an attempt to get himself to realize that there wasn’t a fist clenching around his throat.

Alexander continued reading from the list unabated, completely oblivious to what was going on in John’s head.  

“...as much cilantro as we can fit in one of those plastic bag thingies, onions and peppers for the recaíto, banana leaves and cornmeal for the pasteles, and- wait, John, didn’t you want to make arroz con pollo?”

John had been planning on it, but when he went to open his mouth to say so, the words wouldn’t come.

Instead, John started stuttering out, “But- I mean, it sounds like Martha’s making a lot already, I wouldn’t want to intrude or anything-”

Alexander abruptly stopped in his tracks and turned around to face him. John’s hands clenched on the handle of the shopping cart.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Alexander asked, his eyebrows knitting together. “You know you’re not intruding. The Washingtons were over the moon when I told them you’d be my plus one this year.”

Alexander was right. John had been looking forward to it all month. Why was he suddenly so uneasy?

The song kept playing.

_“May your days be merry and bright…”_

The imaginary grip on his shoulders, around his neck, grew tighter.

“Yeah,” he choked out. “Yeah, of course.”

Alexander stepped closer. John found himself trying to will Alexander to step back to where he had been standing. Why the hell was he doing that?

“Listen,” John said, valiantly attempting to sound level-headed. “I’ll go to the fruits and veggies aisle and get the herbs and plantains and stuff, and you go get the sugar and chocolate, ok?”

Alexander didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure? We could just stick together, it would probably be easier that way anyway-”

Bing Crosby overhead was making John jittery. He knew somehow that the sooner he got Alexander away from him, the better.

“It’ll take us half the time if we split up,” John reasoned. “You take the cart, I’ll get a basket.”

Alexander took the cart from John, eyeing him suspiciously the whole time.

John did his best to smile convincingly, and it seemed to work. Alexander relaxed slightly, and gave him a quick kiss before heading off in the opposite direction.

John found that his jaw was beginning to clench. He shook it off, and headed toward the produce aisle.

There was a baby crying loudly near the pineapples. People around John were plugging their ears and quickly heading off to different parts of the store, complaining to each other about the baby’s incompetent mother.

John didn’t mind in the slightest. He knew how hard it was to take care of a kid.

And for some reason, John suddenly felt- not good, but normal. Ish. Definitely a lot more grounded than he had felt before. The tightness and pressure that had been constantly hounding him since he stepped into the store had melted away. John shrugged and headed over to the plantains, supposing it must have been some sort of freak thing.

Once he had the plantains, banana leaves, and strawberries in his basket, he headed over to the vegetables.

He was sifting through the parsley and cilantro, almost convinced that he’d have to break a stem and sniff it like a lunatic in order to figure out which was which, when he started to hear the music again.

_“This, this is Christ the King…”_

A shiver wracked John’s body.

Everyone else loved Christmas music. Why the hell was it making him feel this way? There was absolutely no logic behind it. John truly felt, for the first time in his life, like he was losing his mind.

He tried to concentrate on his search, but it was useless.

_“...whom shepherds guard and angels sing…”_

He tried to break a stem of one of the unidentifiable herbs and accidentally dropped it to the floor.

He was probably just upset because Christmas music reminded him of home. His wonderful, beautiful home that he had run away from because he couldn’t man up and take a few unkind words from his father. Because it reminded him of the siblings he selfishly abandoned.

He pulled his phone out to call Alexander, and hesitated.

What could John tell him? That he couldn’t handle listening to Christmas carols? That he was such a freak that wonderful, happy, festive music set him off?

John grabbed a few of the bunches of herbs, beyond caring whether they were cilantro or parsley, and started shoving them in the plastic bag he’d ripped off the wheel.

_“...haste, haste, to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary…”_

The feeling of dread only rose in his chest. He felt like he was slipping away from where he was in the supermarket, slipping back, back to South Carolina, back to his father’s house, back to the time when he was small and his father was very, very strong.

John pressed the button to call Alexander, pointedly ignoring how his hands were shaking.

Alexander picked up the phone, but seemed to be talking to someone else. John half-heard him screaming at someone; he must have been covering the phone with his hand.

“No, not cranberry juice,” Alexander was shouting. “Cranberry _sauce, ay carajo,_  don’t they train you for this stuff?”

“Alex,” he said shakily.

“I just can’t believe that _some_ people don’t know how to offer basic customer service! I mean, come on!”

John pressed a finger into his other ear to drown out the music.

“Alexander.”

“I’m being argumentative? _I’m_ being argumentative?”

“Alexander!” John said into the phone, his voice cracking.

From what John could hear, Alexander was fumbling with his phone on the other end..

“Hey, cariño,” Alexander said into the phone, much more quietly than he had been speaking before. “Sorry about that, someone was being an ass. What’s going on? Did you get all the produce stuff?”

“I…” John’s voice wasn’t working.

“John?” Alexander’s voice was staticky over the phone, but John could still hear the concern in his voice.

“I need to go home,” John said, eyes fixed on the tomatoes and hating how young he sounded.

John heard a crash off to his right, followed by a string of profanities in multiple languages.

“Sorry, sorry!” a voice shouted.

John turned and saw a pair of huge, worried brown eyes gazing at him.

“I already called an Uber,” Alexander said quickly. “No te preocupes por los comestibles.”

“Pero…” The word felt like ash in John’s mouth. “Martha nos necesita para comprarlos, y-”

“Yo dije que no te preocupes por eso,” Alexander said with a kind smile. “Está bien. Lafayette irá de compras más tarde.”

John found himself nodding. In a daze, he followed Alexander out of the store and onto the street.

The air outside was freezing, and there was snow falling from the sky. But as John felt the sun on his face and Alexander’s hand in his own, he felt like he had never been warmer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> “ay carajo” - basically “fuck”
> 
> “cariño” - sweetheart
> 
> “No te preocupes por los comestibles.” - “Don’t worry about the groceries.”
> 
> “Pero…Martha nos necesita para comprarlos, y-” - “But...Martha needs us to buy them, and-“
> 
> "Yo dije que no te preocupes por eso,” - “I said not to worry about that,”
> 
> “Está bien. Lafayette irá de compras más tarde.” - “It’s fine. Lafayette will go shopping later.”
> 
>  
> 
> -
> 
> Thanks for reading! I’ll definitely be updating this soon.
> 
> Christmas carols have been especially rough for me in particular, and I felt this deserved to be written. I’ll be adding at least two more chapters about John’s Christmas with the Washingtons.
> 
> Please comment what you thought of this!


	2. Washed My Hands of That for This?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexander has some scars from his time in a group home that he doesn’t ever talk about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French/Spanish translations are in the end notes. Enjoy!

Alexander walked into the kitchen and burst out into laughter when he saw Lafayette staring mournfully into a large bowl.

They seemed to be so upset about whatever they were trying to cook that they didn’t even notice Alexander’s cackles coming from the doorway.

Their sleeves were rolled up and almost every square inch of their body was covered in flour. They had George’s large recipe book open on the counter next to them, but seemed to only get more confused the longer they tried to read it.

“Merry Christmas, Laf,” Alex called out to them.

Lafayette’s mournful expression brightened considerably when they saw Alexander. “Mon petit lion, Joyeux Noël! Why are you here so early?”

Alexander laughed. “We’re here exactly when we said we’d be here, Laf. I think you’re running late.”

Lafayette put a hand to their chest. “Jamais!”

They pulled their hand away and realized they had left a handprint of flour on their turtleneck, stark against the black.

Lafayette glared at Alexander as he started to laugh.

“I’m not laughing, I’m not laughing!”

A voice came from behind Alexander. “Oh, holy fucking shit!”

That was definitely John. Alexander cringed as he heard him crash into the umbrella stand next to the door, sending all the umbrellas crashing to the ground.

“Cariño, you need some help there?” he asked.

“Nope, nope, I got this,” John said, presumably putting all the umbrellas back, if the loud clanking noises were any indication.

John finally stood up and barreled into the kitchen.

He was lugging at least seven bags full of ridiculously large presents, making Alexander’s seem minuscule by comparison. He didn’t fit through the doorway at first, but after a minute of maneuvering and a hand from Alexander, he made it through.

John grinned at Alexander when he finally made it through. His eyes migrated to a place above Alexander’s eyes, and Alexander touched his hair self-consciously.

“What?” he asked.

“You have snow in your hair,” John said, reaching a hand up to brush it off.

He had forgotten that his arms were full of presents, and whacked Alexander in the nose with them so hard that Alexander dropped all the presents he was holding.

“Hey!” Alexander shoved his arm away before he could cause further damage, rubbing his nose with his now free hand.

John’s eyes bugged out of his head. “Oh my gosh, Alexander are you alright? I’m so sorry!”

He reached towards his face again to rub the spot, and realized how terrible of an idea that was.

John dropped all his bags on the floor to mingle with Alexander’s. He grabbed Alexander’s face in his hands and kissed him gently on the nose.

Alexander broke out into a grin and started to giggle.

“There,” John said with a smile. “All better.”

Behind them, Lafayette groaned. “Pour l'amour de dieu, Alexandre, vas-tu niquer à la porte?”

Alexander blushed scarlet as John looked between them in confusion.

“Pourquoi devez-tu être si vulgaire?” he scolded. “C’est Noël.”

Lafayette smirked. “Alors? N'est-ce pas une tradition de se moquer de vos proches à Noël?”

John cleared his throat. “Ok, I got ‘tradition’ and ‘doorway,’ but that’s about it.”

“Don’t worry about it, John,” Alexander said, picking his bags up off the floor and charging past his boyfriend to throw them on the kitchen table. “Laf is just being Laf.”

Alexander started to help John pick the rest of the packages up off the floor.

“Where are George and Martha?” he asked.

Lafayette didn’t look up at him. “They went out to buy, how you say, _des fraises?_ ”

Alexander rolled his eyes. “Laf, you speak better English than both of us. You know the word is strawberries.”

Lafayette snapped their fingers and pointed at Alexander, a smile on their face. “That’s the word. Thank you, petit lion.”

“Why are they out now?” John asked. “I mean, didn’t they know they needed strawberries when you went shopping a few days ago?”

“Oui, oui, but all the stores were out of them.”

Alexander furrowed his brow, the packages forgotten. “Why were they out of strawberries?”

“Je ne sais pas, I suppose they are the ‘in’ thing this year. They have gone to that fruit stand on East 222nd as a last resort. If George does not have his chocolate covered strawberries, he will become quite murderous.”

Alexander and Lafayette laughed at that, but John was strangely silent.

It was probably nothing.

Alexander shed the rest of his outerwear and revealed his Christmas sweater. Lafayette burst out laughing when they saw it.

“Mon chou, why the fuck does your sweater say ‘Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal?’”

The words sounded extremely strange in Lafayette’s accent.

“Oh come on, Laf, it’s a classic!” Alexander exclaimed. “We’re definitely watching Home Alone 2 today, and we’ll keep watching it until it penetrates that thick skull of yours.”

Lafayette raised an eyebrow. “Is that really a good enough reason to use that word?”

It took Alexander a minute, but when he realized what Lafayette was referring to, he punched them in the arm, ignoring their protests.

“John!” Lafayette called. “Your boyfriend is being terribly cruel to me!”

Alexander looked back over at his boyfriend. John had finally disentangled himself from his long Gryffindor scarf that Martha had made him for his birthday. He was currently working on taking all the presents out of the bags that Alexander had thrown on the table.

“I’m sure you deserved it, Laf!” he called over his shoulder.

Alexander snickered.

Lafayette punched him just as hard as he had punched them.

“Ouch!”

Lafayette ignored him.

“Wash your hands and help me make this pastry dough,” Lafayette said. “And John, can you cut some of those apples up for me, s'il te plaît?”

John shot Alexander a grin and started on the veritable mountain of apples Lafayette had stacked on the counter.

Rubbing the spot on his arm that Lafayette hit, Alexander grudgingly made his way over to the sink. He absentmindedly turned the water on and reached for the soap.

“Hey, Laf,” he called, “there are some dishes here, you want me to do them?”

“Oui, s'il te plaît, merci. The pastries can wait.”

He lathered up his hands and smiled to himself as Lafayette started to curse in French behind him, fruitlessly trying to knead the dough for the pie crust. Lafayette was wonderful at many things, but cooking was not one of them.

The three of them settled into a comfortable silence, the only sounds coming from Doctor Who playing in the living room, John chopping the apples, the water running down the drain.

As Alexander was scrubbing a particularly crusty pot with a sponge, he noticed steam rising from the water. He knit his eyebrows in confusion. That was odd. The water wasn’t even hot.

He shook his head and turned his attention back to the pot, letting his mind wander.

Alexander had gotten the best present for John. It had been extremely difficult to hide, especially now that they were living together, but he had succeeded. He had bought John an outrageously expensive set of oil paints for him to use in his studio art class. It had taken Alexander a while to save the money, but he had managed it.

John had been feeling a little insecure about changing his major recently. He knew it was the right decision, but Alexander knew better than anyone that he couldn’t completely get rid of the self-doubt that had been forced down his throat since he was small. Not alone, at least.

Thank god Henry was finally out of the picture. Together, Alex and John could deal with whispers that plagued John when he was at his weakest. It was Henry’s physical presence that got out of hand, the visits, the emails…

Alexander was snapped out of his thoughts by a yell.

_“Arrêtez!”_

Alexander whipped his head around to see what was the matter, his hands stilling where they were scrubbing at the pot.

Lafayette sprinted towards him and shoved him to the side. Alexander gripped the counter to keep himself from falling over as Lafayette hurriedly shut the faucet. What the hell was going on?

“Laf, what the fuck?” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans.

Alexander heard John’s knife clatter to the table.

John came over to Alexander’s side, his eyes wide as saucers. “Oh my god, Alexander, look.”

Had everyone completely lost their minds?

“Look at what?” Alexander snapped.

Lafayette turned around and grabbed Alexander’s wrists, forcing his hands upward. Alexander tried to yank them back, but Lafayette held firm.

“Frérot, look at your hands.”

“What? Why do you want me to look at my-“

John grabbed his shoulder. “Alexander. Look.”

Alexander looked down and almost screamed.

“You didn’t feel it, did you?” Lafayette asked quietly.

Alexander couldn’t look away from his hands.

They were bright red, the skin grotesquely peeling all around the scars left from the burns he had gotten as a child. He knew they had never healed right, but still…

He had spent too long away from home. At his and John’s apartment, he knew which knob was for hot and cold. He supposed he must have forgotten to check the Washingtons’ kitchen sink before turning it on.

Stupid.

This never would have happened if he had just been more aware.

And now, Lafayette and John were forced to stop what they were doing to look after him. He suddenly felt claustrophobic, standing there surrounded by the two of them. Why couldn’t they just leave him alone?

He dropped his hands and forced himself to look away. He shook John’s hand off his shoulder and tried to walk off, but Lafayette grabbed his arm.

“Let us help you, petit lion,” they said softly, eyes pleading.

Alexander opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again. Deep down, even he knew that this wasn’t a time for stealing a tube of Neosporin from the cabinet in secret, going right back to typing and writing like nothing was wrong because he didn’t know what he’d do otherwise. He wasn’t a little kid anymore.

He forced himself to nod jerkily and allowed Lafayette and John to sit him down at the table.

As Lafayette ran off to the bathroom to get Martha’s first aid kit, John sat down beside him.

John nudged his shoulder and he turned to look. John shot him a small, bittersweet smile, his curls artfully framing his face where they had fallen out from his ponytail. Alexander loved him so much in that moment that he felt like he would burst from the force of it.

“Why didn’t you notice how hot the water was?” John asked quietly.

Alexander sighed through his nose.

“I burned my hands when I was a kid,” he said, “and they never healed right. I mean, I never left them alone long enough for them to heal right, because what was I supposed to do, stop writing? But I..I also...I didn’t have any...you know…”

Realization dawned in John’s eyes. “Was this at the…”

“Yeah,” he said curtly.

John stared down at the kitchen table.

Strangely, or perhaps not strangely at all, Alexander felt extremely comforted by the fact that John knew what he was talking about. He knew what it was like to get hurt because of an adult you were supposed to trust, to be left to fend for yourself afterward, to have to steal supplies and nurse your wounds in the dead of night.

John had talked to him about this before. This overwhelming feeling that the two of them _knew_ each other. Alexander could never get enough of it.

“Are you alright, corazón?” John asked.

They both knew he wasn’t talking about Alexander’s hands.

“Yo siempre estoy bien cuando estoy contigo,” he said softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Jamais!” - Never!
> 
> “Pour l'amour de dieu, Alexandre, vas-tu niquer à la porte?” - For the love of God, Alexander, are you going to start fucking in the doorway?
> 
> “Pourquoi devez-tu être si vulgaire? C’est Noël.” - Why do you have to be so vulgar? It’s Christmas.
> 
> “Alors? N'est-ce pas une tradition de se moquer de vos proches à Noël?” - So? Is it not a tradition to make fun of your loved ones at Christmas?
> 
> “Arrêtez!” - Stop!
> 
> “Yo siempre estoy bien cuando estoy contigo,” - I’m always ok when I’m with you.”
> 
> -
> 
> Thanks for reading!! As always, I would love it if you could leave a comment telling me what you thought. The third chapter is almost finished, and will be posted soon. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!


	3. Some Nights, I Always Win

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette is too nosy for their own good, and John and George have a talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations of the larger sentences are in the end notes, as always.
> 
> At the very end, I have extra notes about a bunch of stories I have in progress. I’m not sure which one to finish/post first, and I’d love some advice!

John was being weird.

Alexander hadn’t noticed yet, caught up in telling the story of his latest debate with Jefferson that only seemed to grow louder and louder. His freshly bandaged hands were moving faster than light as he gestured widely to punctuate every sentence. Everyone was enraptured by his story. But Lafayette, curled up in a corner of the sofa, had heard this story a thousand times. Instead of listening, they were quietly sipping their hot cocoa and observing every person in the room.

Everyone was sipping their cocoa and watching Alexander with varying states of amusement. But John’s eyes kept flitting back to George every few seconds. It was hard to notice if you weren’t paying attention. Lafayette was almost sure John didn’t even realize he was doing it.

Lafayette decided that they needed to get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later.

“Alexander,” they said.

Alexander turned to look at them, frozen in the middle of a sentence.

“Can you come take a look at the pies with me?”

Alexander looked at them with confusion. “Didn’t you just put them in?”

“Ouais,” Lafayette said, “but I am, you know,  _ paranoïaque _ .”

Alexander rolled his eyes and stalked into the kitchen. “You better not have forgotten to preheat the oven, imbécile.”

John looked extremely alarmed at the idea of being left alone in the room with George and Martha. Lafayette shot him a reassuring smile and bolted after Alexander.

Alexander was bent over, inspecting the pies inside the oven and holding the door open with his bandaged hands gripping the handle. “.....fine, Laf, and you should really set it to 400 instead of 3- oh,” he straightened, having noticed Lafayette walking into the room. “Sorry, I thought you were behind me.”

“Alexander.”

“Yeah? What? The pies are fine, I honestly don’t know why you-”

“This is not about the pies.”

Alexander pushed the oven door closed.

“What is it?” he asked. 

“Something’s wrong with John.”

All traces of humor left Alexander’s face.

“What happened?” he said, his voice a rasp.

Lafayette nudged him in the shoulder. “Calm down, petit lion. He’s fine. I just noticed that he keeps staring at George like he’s going to attack him or something.”

Realization dawned on Alexander’s face. He reached a hand up toward his mouth. “Fils de pute.”

“You’re not surprised.”

“No, uh,” Alexander ran a hand over his face. “John’s father is a, uh…”

“Mean person?”

“Douchebag,” Alexander said at the same time.

Lafayette blinked. Alexander usually reserved that term for the absolute scum of the earth. 

“Really?” they asked.

“Yeah, like…we’re talking Dumbledore, Voldemort, Snape, Uncle Vernon, and like three random ass trolls combined into one pasty looking Republican.”

“Mon dieu.” Lafayette mulled this new information over in their head. It still didn’t change their plan.

Lafayette cleared their throat. “Petit lion, how would you feel about-”

Both of them jumped when they heard Martha’s laughter coming from the other room.

“About what?” Alexander asked.

“Could you ask Georges and Martha to help you with something?”

Alexander looked at Lafayette like he had grown another head. “Help me with what?”

“Je ne sais pas, your hands? The pies? Make something up. Just get them out of the living room. And then tell George he should have a word with John. In private. Sooner rather than later.

Alexander’s eyebrows furrowed and he gave Lafayette that  _ look,  _ the one that said “I think I know what you’re doing, you little shit, and you better stop.”

Before Alexander could open his mouth and say the words out loud, Lafayette started to walk out of the kitchen. “Merci, petit lion!”

Alexander shouted after him, but Lafayette had gone back into the living room.

Martha glanced at them suspiciously as they threw themself back onto the couch. 

“Laf, honey, you look like the cat that ate the canary.”

Lafayette blinked. “You think I was eating a songbird in the kitchen?”

John barked a laugh, looking happy to have an excuse to angle his body away from George. “Laf, she means you look guilty.”

_ “Quoi?”  _ Lafayette laid a hand on their chest dramatically. “I am the height of innocence and purity.”

The smile on John’s face got wider. “Sure you are, buddy.”

Alexander poked his head out of the kitchen doorway. “Hey, Martha? George? Can you help me with something for a sec?”

Martha was already halfway out of her chair. “What’s up?”

Alexander made a vague gesture with his hands and spluttered until Martha rolled her eyes and followed him into the kitchen, George in tow. 

Lafayette made sure to never look away from John while this was going on. As soon as George and Martha were out of view, John visibly relaxed. His shoulders sank down, he uncrossed his legs, and his back sagged into the cushion of the couch.

“Why are you doing that, petit tortue?”

John’s eyes snapped to Lafayette’s.

“Doing what?” he asked.

_ Too fast. _

“I’m going to play Benedict Cumberbatch for a moment,” Lafayette said carefully.

John burst out laughing. 

“What the fu-” John glanced hurriedly in the direction of the kitchen. 

“...heck?” he finished lamely. 

Lafayette ignored his obvious paranoia. 

“You’re scared of Georges,” they said matter-of-factly.

John forced a laugh, but it sounded a lot more like a cat being strangled. 

“No I’m not,” he said, completely unconvincingly.

“You need to sit down and have a conversation with him,” Lafayette said firmly, “in private.”

John blanched. “Wha- why do you want me to do that?”

“Jésus Christ, because you’re obviously-“ Lafayette glanced toward the door and lowered their voice. They weren’t afraid of George or Martha, not at all, but they also didn’t want them to hear this conversation. “You’re obviously afraid of him, John. And you have no reason to be. Georges has been  _ merveilleux,  _ absolutely wonderful to Alexandre and I for as long as we have resided here.”

John started fidgeting uncomfortably. “Yeah, I’m sure, I just…”

“John.”

John straightened, letting the façade finally drop.

“I just don’t trust him, ok?” he whisper-yelled, fire blazing in his eyes. “I don’t trust him at all. There, I said it. Jeez! I think I’m allowed that, ok? I’m allowed to be upset!” 

Lafayette bit their lip nervously. This was not what they wanted to happen.

“Listen,” they said, as placatingly as they could muster. “Of course you’re allowed to be upset, mon chou. But I will not be shaken on this. You need to talk to Georges. He’s going to ask to talk to you when he comes back in, I arranged it all so you wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

John opened his mouth to protest, but at that moment, Alexander barreled back into the room, the Washingtons in tow.

“Tout va bien, Laf,” Alexander said in a low voice, “mais ils pensent tous les deux que j'ai perdu la tête.”

He spared a moment to kiss John on the lips, quickly but sweetly, and curled up into his armchair. 

Martha took her seat as well, but George remained standing. 

He cleared his throat, his hands in his pockets. “John, could I speak with you for a moment?”

“Of course, sir,” John said, all the blood drained out of his face.

Alexander shot Lafayette a death glare at John’s expression.

“No tienes que hacerlo,” Alexander said quickly to John.

“Yo creo que ambos sabemos eso no es cierto,” John said quietly.

He followed George into study, looking like he was walking to his death.

Lafayette smiled into their hot chocolate, ignoring Alexander’s betrayed expression and Martha’s concerned glance.

Alexander walked over to where Lafayette was sitting and smacked the top of their head with the new book he had gotten from John.

“Ow!” Lafayette said, rubbing their head. “What was that for?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Alexander said, looking very much like he wanted to smack them again.

Lafayette knew this was the right decision. Everything would work out wonderfully.

Lafayette watched Alexander throw himself back into his armchair, biting his lip and positively vibrating with concern.

They swallowed nervously. 

Probably. Everything would  _ probably  _ work out wonderfully.

Lafayette took a long sip of their hot chocolate, suddenly wishing it was filled with something stronger.

 

* * *

 

George led John down the hallway and toward a room with double doors, the well-worn oak framing faded panes of glass.

George turned the brass knob on one of the doors and pushed it open, walking inside. 

John slowly followed and blinked in surprise when he saw the grand piano that was taking up most of the room. The top of the bench was practically bursting off from the amount of sheet music crammed inside. The keys were covered, and the top closed, but John couldn’t help but get a good feeling from the instrument. It seemed like it was full of happy ghosts, throwing a ball in the early hours of the morning.

_ Tone it down, Jack. _

John blinked hard and concentrated on the man that was actually with him at the moment.

George gestured for John to sit in one of the two overstuffed armchairs in the corner of the room. As John tentatively sat, George crossed to the side of the room and began going through the papers covering the desk that sat there.

“I didn’t know you played,” John said, trying to break the ice.

“I don’t,” George said, focused on organizing the papers littering his desk. 

“Oh.” John fidgeted in his seat.

George placed the last of the papers into a drawer and crossed back over, sitting heavily in the armchair across from John. “Alexander plays.”

John blinked. “Really?”

George’s gaze fixed on something in the distance and the ghost of a smile crossed his face. But as quickly as it came, it disappeared.

John felt strangely vindicated. George had been smiling and laughing with everyone else the entire day, just as John had. But now, alone with John, the joy was…not gone, but definitely subdued. Wiped away. John didn’t want George to turn out to be the man he feared he was. But he couldn’t help but feel justified in seeing the disturbed expression of George’s face.

“John,” George began, “I’ve wanted to speak with you for a while.”

Well, at least he didn’t call him  _ Jack. _

“Sir?”

“Alexander told me that the two of you have been living together ever since that disaster happened with his roommate?”

“Yeah, he’s been crashing at my place,” John said, rubbing the back of his neck. “He showed up there that night, and of course I didn’t have any problem with him staying, I mean…” John began to laugh nervously. “I had asked him to move in with me a while back, but he said he didn’t want to, he wanted to stay independent, and of course I understood that, but now-”

George held up a hand and John immediately shut his mouth. He was sure George must have had a lot of practice with making rambling people quiet down. He had raised Alexander since he was twelve, after all.

“John,” George started, his voice slow and certain, like he was forcing himself to be careful with his words, “are you sure it wouldn’t be better if Alexander were to stay with Lafayette?”

John immediately sat up straighter. He forced himself to swallow and think about his words before answering.

“If- if that’s what Alexander wants to do, sir,” he said.

John kept his eyes locked with George’s, even as they began to water. He irrationally felt like the man must never have blinked in his entire life. George seemed like a much more dignified version of Mad-Eye Moody. Just as unpredictable, just as experienced, and definitely just as predatory. 

It wasn’t like John expected George to get up and yell  _ “Constant vigilance!”  _ while shaking a walking stick at him any time soon. But at the same time, he felt like George didn’t need to. He seemed like the sort of man who never needed to yell for his words to have meaning, for you to know just how much of a soldier he was.

John felt a shiver run up his spine as he pictured the devastating impact George must have on those around him when he something got him angry enough to make him raise his voice.

George leaned forward, folding his hands together as his elbows rested on his knees. John was close enough that he could smell his cologne. He fought every instinct that was screaming at him to flinch away.

“You know, son, I wasn’t very keen on the idea of Alexander...getting close to you.”

_ He doesn’t want to mention that we’re dating. _

John felt himself shrink even further. If that were even possible. 

“Why?” John managed to choke out.

There was no way that George was homophobic. Right? The man had practically raised Alexander and Lafayette, two of the queerest people John knew.

Unless.

Unless it was fake. Unless George acted nicely in front of his own kids, because he loved them, but secretly thought gay people were disgusting.

John certainly wouldn’t be surprised.

An even worse thought made its way into John’s brain, despite his weak protests. 

Maybe Alexander had told George about John’s asexuality. Maybe George just wanted Alexander to have a  _ real  _ relationship with someone, thought his son deserved better.

John honestly couldn’t blame him.

But then George opened his mouth again.

“I’ve had more than a few nasty encounters with your father, Henry Laurens,” George said, spitting the name like it was poison in his mouth. 

Upon hearing the name, John felt his chest cave in reflexively, like it was anticipating a blow. It made his spine crack obscenely loudly in the quiet room.

“I know the kind of influence men like that can have,” George continued, unabated. “I wasn’t sure whether you shared any of those ideologies, whether or not you told your father about your relationship with Alexander. You understand that when Alexander told me about you, I was more than a little concerned that you were dating him because you believe he’s a girl.”

John moistened his suddenly dry lips.

How the hell was he supposed to respond to that? 

George’s piercing gaze gave John the impression that the man could see right through him. He had to use all his willpower resist the strong impulse he was feeling to tell this man his entire life story, just in hopes that he’d leave him alone afterwards.

John stuck his hands underneath his thighs to stop himself from scratching his arms.

“I’ve also had more than a few nasty encounters with that man, sir,” John said quietly, too scared to break eye contact. 

George’s eyes widened in realization. 

“He told me he wanted nothing to do with me after I told him I was in love. With a guy,” John continued, forcing his hands to stay trapped under his thighs. “And I finally I just thought,  _ screw him _ . That’s why I’m here today. I didn’t...I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

George nodded slowly and leaned back into his seat. John couldn’t help but feel like he had passed some sort of test. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, son,” George said quietly.

“I’m not.” John said forcefully, surprising himself.

George looked away, and John had to stifle his sigh of relief. “We can help you out with your rent, or anything else that you need, of course,” George said.

John was shaking his head before George even finished. “That definitely won’t be necessary. My mother left me more than I’ll ever need, and even if she hadn’t, I like making my own way.”

George looked back into John’s eyes, but John no longer felt like he was being held in a chokehold by his gaze. George smiled at him for the first time since they had sat down in this room. It was a broad smile that lit up his whole face, and John suddenly understood why Alexander let this man call him “son.” 

“I’m sorry about how I must have come off, son,” George said with that smile still on his face. “I’m very protective of my children. Martha’s been trying to slap some sense into me for ages, but I think my skull’s just a little bit too thick.”

John felt the tension in his muscles drain away. He was still in a room alone with this man, but he couldn’t help but feel that, at least for right now, he was safe.

Suddenly, an acrid smell filled the room.

“Wha- what is that?” John asked in between coughs.

“Fuck,” George said, jumping up from his chair. “I didn’t take the pumpkin bread out of the oven when Laf put the pies in.”

John couldn’t stifle his laughter in time, and felt happier than he had in a while when George joined in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “No tienes que hacerlo,” - You don’t have to.
> 
> “Yo creo que ambos sabemos eso no es cierto,” - I think we both know that’s not true.
> 
> -
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, guys! Please comment to tell me what you thought, and of course kudos are always more than appreciated.
> 
> Don’t worry, this ‘verse will be updated again soon.
> 
> Happy holidays!!
> 
> Edit: I will be adding one more chapter to this fic.

**Author's Note:**

> I have lots of works in progress, and I’d like to ask everyone reading this which they’d like me to finish and post first:
> 
> -a story about John and Alex finding out about Burr and Theodosia  
> -a pre-for once there is nothing up my sleeve story about John shopping for dresses with Lafayette  
> -a story about John beating up a transphobic “friend” that picks on Alexander  
> -a story about Alexander’s roommate kicking him out  
> -a story about John's sister Patsy running away from home and turning up at his door
> 
> If you’d like, comment which story you’d like me to post first below. Thanks for your help and advice in advance if you decide to comment, and thanks for reading all this!


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